Intended Meaning
For Shahrur, the civil state is based on pluralism, rights, and freedoms, not on imposing a single pattern on people. It does not interfere in individual choices, and it separates rituals from governance, because its function is to protect human beings, guarantee their rights, and educate and qualify them.
The Atom’s Structure in the Atlas
- Type of argument: Political
- Argument movement: Defines the civil state through rights and freedoms and the separation of rituals from governance.
- Key terms: civil state, rights, freedoms, rituals.
- Degree of centrality: Primary.
This atom defines the function of the state as protecting human beings rather than controlling their choices, and links civility to pluralism, rights, and freedoms, with a separation between the religious sphere and the political sphere.
Links That Help Reading
- Muhammad Shahrur: The State and Society
- The Civil State, Religion, and Authority
- The Civil State
- The people and the state translate plurality within a political unity
Basis
- Supporting text: «He affirms that the civil state is based on pluralism, rights, and freedoms, and on the state’s non-interference in individual choices, together with the separation of rituals from the state. He links monotheism and pluralism: plurality in society is the true expression of God’s oneness, whereas uniformity leads to tyranny and ruin. He argues that many monolithic regimes—communist, Nazi, fascist, and others—ended in destruction, and he sees in this the realization of a divine historical law. He maintains that human values, not rituals, are the foundation of the state and society, and that the state’s duty is to protect human beings, educate and qualify them, and guarantee their rights».
Place of Basis in the Book
- Book: The State and Society.
- Location: in the middle section of the book, within the discussion of the civil state and human rights.
- Type of basis: Near witness.
- Verification marker: pluralism, rights, freedoms
- Reading note: The paragraph combines the civil state with pluralism, rights, and freedoms, and with the protection of choices, thus clearly supporting the atom.
Degree of Documentation
- Level: Structurally documented
- Meaning of level: The atom rests on more than one witness or on a clear composition of closely related phrases.
- Reason for classification: The passages combine pluralism, rights, and freedoms as the core of the civil state.
- Limits of reading: The wording above is an analytical summary and should not be treated as a verbatim quotation unless the witness is quoted verbatim.
Its Function in the Book
Its function here is assertive; it establishes a result on which what follows in the argument depends.
Related to
Editorial Note
This is a foundational political atom in Shahrur’s conception of the state.